


We've Been Here Before

by darlingargents



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Acting, Amnesia, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Mindfuckery, Hook-Up, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, More Canada Than Is Entirely Necessary, Pre-IT Chapter Two (2019), Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-08 02:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20827973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: One of Bill's books is being adapted into a film. Richie is the star. (And there's something so very familiar about this writer guy.)





	We've Been Here Before

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on [this prompt](https://derrykink.dreamwidth.org/1225.html?thread=52425#cmt52425) from [derrykink](https://derrykink.dreamwidth.org/):
> 
> _Pre-Chapter 2, Richie ends up in one of the adaptations of Bill’s work that he’s in charge of the script for. They end up hooking up._
> 
> There's a few headcanons in here, most of which I shamelessly stole from discussions in various places. The big one that this rests on is that they've met each other, and when they do, they don't remember that they know each other already.
> 
> The main pairing here is definitely Bill/Richie, but there's a couple of other things that I didn't tag for, since they're not a huge part of the plot. Richie recalls that he's had sex twice in his life before Bill. One of the times was with a woman, and he doesn't consider it a positive experience. There is also some brief, outsider-POV Bill/Audra after the main events of the fic. No infidelity; the two ships happen at different times.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't know anything about making movies.

Richie’s agent Katy has been telling him for literal years that he should break into film. It’s been going on long enough that it’s practically a running joke — she emails him a script with a few question marks and emojis, and he emails back that he doesn’t like the character’s name or that he’s having a funeral for his pet goldfish that week, and even if he opens the PDF and looks through it a bit, it’s still not really something he wants to do. He started out at open mic nights in bars, where the audience’s laughter or lack thereof were his guide to what worked and what didn't — he learned comedy, and acting, and everything else, by gauging other people’s reactions.

So no, he’s not interested in movies, or superbowl ads, or doing his own sitcom. He’s just not. He’ll do his live shows and maybe a Netflix special or two, and he’ll do SNL a couple more times, probably. That’s it.

Until he gets a series of texts from Katy one night while he’s watching Chopped and trying not to think about the cute sound guy from his show the other week. (And failing.) His phone buzzes, four texts from _ Katy _💅:

_ check your email _

_ it’s a book adaptation _

_ and the book author requested you _

_ just open it so i can say you said it didn’t feel like the right move for your career or what the fuck ever _

He texts back _ k _ and opens his email. The usual — ???????😍😍😍🤩🤩🤩🤔🤔🤔😱😱😱, and a PDF attachment. He opens it.

THE EMPTY GRAVE by WILLIAM DENBROUGH jumps out at him from the top of the page. For a moment the words seem almost meaningless, and then he remembers — stopping at the airport gift shop at LAX, grabbing a book off the shelf, whatever cover looked the coolest, and reading it cover to cover on the way to New York. In the short time between finishing the book and the plane landing, he’d simply sat there, holding it, and wondering why he felt like he was going to either cry or throw up, while also desperate to flip back to the first page and read it again.

He’d read it three more times before shoving it in a box in his closet somewhere.

Before he’s even aware of choosing to stand, he’s in the closet, pushing aside a few pairs of gloves and hats on the top shelf. Behind them is a cardboard box, and when he pulls it down, it’s heavier than he expected.

He leaves the closet, crosses the room to his bed, and dumps out the box. At least fifteen books spill out. He picks up the one that fell closest to him. THE BLACK RAPIDS.

By William Denbrough.

He has — what, fifteen, twenty books by this guy? And they’re in a box in his closet? _ Why_? Richie has no idea. His skin is crawling, and there’s something itching at the back of his mind that he can’t understand. He digs through the pile until he pulls out THE EMPTY GRAVE. It was the first Denbrough he read, he’s pretty sure, unless it wasn’t — unless it was any of these other ones. He can’t remember any of them.

He drops the book and unlocks his phone. Scrolls through the script for maybe a minute. And texts Katy back.

_ i’ll do it _

She responds less than ten seconds later. _ you’ll fucking what???? seriously???? _

_ do your job and set up the audition _

_ okay going for it. this isn’t a prank right??? you’re serious??? _

_ yes_, he responds, and shuts off his phone before opening his laptop and going to his email. He opens the script and starts to read.

* 

It’s the first audition he’s had to do in years, but Richie’s pretty sure he nails it. His character is a comedian — down on his luck, working a day job just to do standup at bars, and basically Richie’s worst fear, so he taps into it and it goes… well. So well that he gets a callback, and then a week later Katy calls him and when he picks up, she screams into the phone for about fifteen seconds.

“You got it! Holy shit, Richie, I never thought I’d see the day!”

“Really?” He’d known he did a good job, but there’s knowing that and knowing that once this tour is finished, he’ll be on a movie set for six months. It’s a new and not entirely bad thought.

“Really! I’ll email you the details. Good job! And remember, I did this for you.”

“I know your birthday’s coming up,” he says, and makes a mental note to actually get her something other than a bonus this year.

“Love ya, Richie,” she says, laughing, and hangs up.

*

So that’s how, once his next three shows are finished, he gets on a plane to Vancouver and then into a car to drive north. They’re filming in the mountains, which is so far out of his comfort zone that it’s not even funny, but he’s a movie star now and he’ll do what it takes.

(He has to ask himself why the fuck he decided to jump into a movie set in the woods in the middle of nowhere, filled with dramatic scenes in the rain and mud. He doesn’t really have an answer to that, and here he is.)

The whole cast and crew are staying in old-fashioned hotel, built like a log cabin and a five minute walk away from a lake that would be beautiful if it wasn’t October and either pouring rain or so foggy that it’s impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you. When he’s outside in the rare non-rain-or-fog moments, the mountains, dark green and topped with a dusting of snow, are almost claustrophobic: reaching up into the sky, surrounding the lake and hotel on all sides, ringed with low clouds. (Or even just regular clouds; he doesn’t know how far above sea level they are.) The grim gray sky presses down like a layer of skin. He’ll give the location scouts one thing: it matches the damp, dreary, isolated feeling of the book perfectly.

(He’s read it six or seven times since he got the script. He calls it studying his character, but he knows that’s not it — he’s looking for something in the pages, and he has no idea what. Over and over, he reads about his character waking up in a grave — the twist ending flashback, that the protagonist is the missing body that kicks off the plot. The simple yet horrifying descriptions of grave dirt and rain, his character going underground, the flashbacks to a dead little boy that are never explained — it all feels, somehow, _ familiar _.)

It doesn’t make any sense. He falls asleep, the first night in the hotel, still reading; he wakes up with his glasses on and the book open on his chest.

*

He meets William Denbrough at the first table read.

The room is full of people and activity, but for some reason, Richie’s eyes are drawn across the room to the man talking to the director. He’s shorter than Richie, with dark hair and a muscular build, and he’s holding a copy of the book. Richie’s eyes land on him for a moment, and he’s about to look away, mildly confused, when the man stops talking mid-sentence and looks across the room to meet Richie’s eyes.

The palm of his hand stings, sudden and sharp, and he flinches — and the man does too, at the same time. Richie looks down at his palm and for a moment it almost looks like there’s a scar — and then it’s gone, and he looks up again. The director is alone, and he has a moment to wonder if he just had a weird, vivid hallucination when—

“Hello.”

He jumps. The man is standing in front of him, holding out a hand. “Richie Tozier, right?”

“Uh — yeah.” He takes the offered hand and shakes it. He remembers the back cover of the book that he literally slept with the night before, and realizes — “William Denbrough?”

He laughs. “Bill is fine. Nice to meet you. I think they told you — I requested you for Rick? I was at one of your shows a couple years back and for some reason, when I was working on the script, I just kept coming back to you. I knew it was a long shot, but — wow, here you are.”

“Here I am.” Richie laughs, and wonders why, exactly, the hand that was holding Bill’s still feels so warm. “Should I be offended that you thought of me for your failed comedian character?”

Bill laughs again. Richie finds that he really likes it. “Rick’s not a bad comedian. He’s just traumatized. Hard to get audiences to laugh when stuff like that has happened to you, even if you’re the funniest guy in the world.”

_ It’s easier than you’d think _ floats through Richie’s mind, out of nowhere. “Well, I feel better now. Thank you for that.”

“Hey, man, always.” Bill claps Richie on the back and walks away.

*

Richie is expecting some level of awkward at the table read, and there’s a bit — a few long pauses, an intern dropping something at a bad time, all that. But it goes much better than he was expecting. After the first few stumbled lines, it’s like he’s fallen into his character, and even though he’s in a brightly lit room with cold coffee and a stale donut in front of him, he feels like Rick Thomas: failed comedian, amateur detective and a mysterious figure in the small Maine town where he lives. The end is mainly dialogue-free, and as Richie reads out the descriptions, he can feel every sensation in his body.

“Rick stands above the grave,” he says, “with the rain pouring down around him.” (He can feel it — the cold, the damp, the water running down his glasses.) “The scene flashes back and forth between this and Rick digging himself out of the grave. (Earth pushing down on his chest, suffocating. Dirt under his nails. Pushing free, out of the ground and into the dark.) “In the background, a young boy watches, in a yellow raincoat. Rick doesn’t see him. He turns and walks away, fading out of sight.” (The boy in the yellow raincoat. The rain, the storm, the boat — the boat?) “Slow closeup on Rick’s face as the ending music begins to play.” (He is Rick Thomas, he is Richie Tozier, he is in Maine standing over a grave with a ghost over his shoulder.)

Scattered applause. The table read is over. He takes a bite of his donut and pretends that he can’t feel the rain on his shoulders.

Most of the cast and crew are standing, stretching, grabbing snacks. He considers another donut, decides against it, and is considering another coffee when a hand lands on his shoulder. He glances up, at—

“Big Bill!” As soon as he says it, he’s not sure why — he said it like a fond nickname, and he met the guy a few hours ago. But Bill doesn’t act like it’s weird, just grins and sits down in the empty director’s seat beside him.

“That was great, Richie,” Bill says, and Richie pauses and puts down his coffee because — wow. There’s something about having Bill’s gaze focused on him that makes him feel like he’s done something amazing. Bill’s eyes are warm and soft and almost proud, in a weird way. He’s never felt anything quite like the way this makes him feel.

…and he met the guy _ this morning_. What the hell is wrong with him? He needs to stop being weird.

“Really, it’s your story. I just told it,” he says, and feels his stomach shrivel up and crawl away. So he’s incapable of not being weird around Bill. Good to know.

Luckily for him, Bill ignores how fucking weird he’s being. “Nah, man — I told the story in the book. You took it to another level. I’m really excited for this. I know you’re the perfect choice.”

The director comes up beside Bill’s chair and clears her throat politely. Bill takes the hint and stands, clapping Richie on the shoulder once again. “Great job,” he says, “can’t wait to see more of it,” and Richie is blushing like he’s twenty again and a cute guy at the bar is telling him his set was _ fucking killer, man, I was losing it, are you going pro? _

Bill wanders off to shake more hands and do writerly things, and Richie straightens the script in front of him and focuses. He has real, _ actorly _ work to do now. It’s all good.

*

They start filming a week later, all the outdoors scenes in a row. Weeks of being soaked by hoses rigged from above, as if there isn’t enough fucking rain in this godforsaken place. (On the second night of filming, Richie had dreamed about his house in LA, except it didn’t have a roof, which was fine because it didn’t rain. It was a good dream.) But as physically miserable as it is, Richie actually finds it… nice. He is completely comfortable as Rick Thomas, which is weird, because Rick Thomas is a lot like him, and Richie is never that comfortable in his own skin. But this character feels like himself, one step removed, through the eyes of someone else, and it’s manageable.

Yeah, it’s weird. He’s been having a lot of weird, meta, strangely profound thoughts. He tells himself it’s the presence of a bestselling writer.

(He’s also been having a lot of strange dreams — not just the ones about his house and the lack of rain. Dreams about graves and raincoats and Maine. A boy with an overly large bike and a stutter, who seems like a friend — and whose name keeps slipping out of his head the moment he wakes up.)

Unrelatedly, he can’t stop thinking about Bill, and if he were a less cynical person, he’d think the feeling was mutual.

He’s there on set, every day, scribbling away in a notebook and talking to the director, the other cast members, and Richie. Somehow, they always end up talking about Rick and his character arc or motivations or relationships for at least twenty minutes. And after wrap for the day, they usually end up at the bar, having a beer separately, and eventually drifting back together and talking more. Not just about the movie, but about their lives. For maybe an hour, and then both heading to their rooms.

Not much, really. But it keeps happening, and Richie keeps noticing how soft Bill’s lips look, and how often their knees bump into each other when they’re sitting at the bar, and how there isn’t a ring on Bill’s left hand. How he looks at Richie like he sees something there.

*

Filming on this location wraps two months after it begins, and they’re packing up and heading back to the city. Interior scenes, now — sets and a couple of real places. Then it’s onto small-town nowhere for exterior location shots and that’s a wrap, folks, and it’s business as usual.

They’re not even halfway through filming, and Richie is already dreading the end. Not the end of being soaked in water for every single scene — he’s glad to be done that — but when filming is done, he doesn’t know when he’ll see Bill again. And he’s pretty sure, now, that there’s… something between them. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’ll gladly spend a few more off-work hours in Bill’s presence to figure it out.

(So maybe he has a tiny crush on Bill’s eyes and face and personality. Whatever. It’s no big deal. Perfectly ordinary.)

* 

(It’s the first time in… well, ever, that he’s realized he’s into a guy — at least a little bit, kind of — and felt… okay. He refuses to think about it terms of _ love _ or _ lust _ — it’s a man-crush, and everyone gets those, right? He even has a bit about it, about his girlfriend and him both having a man-crush on Chris Evans. He even wrote part of it.

The thing is, Bill is just… not like anyone else he’s ever met. He’s magnetic, charismatic, and something about his attention makes you feel like the most important person in the world. He sees other people reacting like that, too, so he can say, objectively: Bill Denbrough is a really nice guy, and he can make anyone feel special.

His brain is twisting it into something wrong. That’s on him. Nothing to do with Bill. And if Bill knew, he wouldn’t want to do… whatever it is they’re doing; drinking together and hanging out like old friends.

He tells himself that. And that he’ll stop meeting Bill at the bar (they’ve dropped the pretense of going alone; whoever arrives first orders two beers) and stop going to sleep thinking about his smile.

He doesn’t listen to himself, of course.)

*

Filming in Vancouver seems to go by faster than filming in the mountains did, even though it takes a month longer, and then it’s a quick plane ride to some small town for the last two weeks. The location is somewhere north, an hour or two away from an airport, a typical cute little town with a general store and a gas station and not much else, and even though Richie knows he’s never been there in his life — when would he have been? — it’s strangely, uncomfortably familiar. After the first day of filming there, when he meets Bill at their hotel’s (“hotel”) lounge area with two beers from the general store, he sees the same sort of look in Bill’s eyes — recognition.

“Is it just what you pictured?” he asks, when they’ve both opened their bottles. (He’s not sure if they’re allowed to have alcohol in here, but the one staff member seems to have clocked out, so it probably doesn’t matter.) “In the book?”

Bill starts, as if he’d almost forgotten Richie’s presence, and then gives a weak laugh, running his hand through his hair. “Yeah, actually. A little too close for comfort.”

Yeah, Richie can see that. He still has a bit of fake blood in his hair from that day’s scene, and he’s uncomfortably aware of it.

“It’s weird,” Bill says, and pauses, taking another drink from his bottle. “I don’t know. It feels familiar, but not in a good way. But I don’t know what I recognize it from.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, and he’s not sure that he even chose to speak, but he’s doing it anyway — “Yeah, I kind of feel the same.”

Bill just looks at him for a moment, and when Richie meets his eyes, his stomach feels like a million butterflies just exploded. His mouth goes dry, but he can’t take another drink — he feels frozen in place.

“I feel like I know you,” Bill says, and before Richie can think of a response, Bill’s put down his beer and he’s leaning in and—

He’s kissing Richie.

Both his hands on Richie’s face. His lips, warm and a little dry and on Richie’s. It’s not a long or particularly romantic kiss, but when he pulls back, Richie feels like he’s gone through a whirlwind and come out the other side.

He’s not sure what to do. Bill’s just looking at him like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. He swallows, licks his lips — sees Bill’s gaze, watching it happen — and says, “So I guess it’s obvious that I like dick?”

* 

(Richie’s not a virgin, but it feels almost more accurate to say that he is than not. He’s had sex twice. The first at eighteen, in college, at his first party and very, very drunk. There’d been a girl with massive tits and a million tattoos that his new friends kept telling him to go for; apparently she wanted to fuck him, and unsurprisingly, Richie hadn’t quite picked up on it. His drunken self had decided it would be a good idea — give it a try, you never know if you’ll like something unless you do — and his memory mostly goes after that. He remembers bright lights and the taste of cheap beer on her tongue, and waking up naked in the morning, on the floor next to her. He’d gone back to his room, showered, and decided to never get that drunk again at a college party again. He’d probably broken that promise at some point, but at least he’d only fucked a woman once.

The second time was at a gay bar, his third or fourth time there. After college, maybe twenty-two. He didn’t know a single person and it was the first time he’d ever kissed a guy, too. The guy had blown him in the bathroom and even though he’d been pretty drunk — not hammered, but getting there — it was still quite possibly the best experience of his life. He’d reciprocated, gone back to dancing, thrown up from too many shots and gone home and tried to forget how good it felt.

Then he’d moved to LA, started a career, and decided that he would never put that career at risk. So no more gay bars, no more anything.

So no, he’s not a virgin, but — everything about this is still a first.)

*

Neither of them are drunk. That’s a first, for Richie. They’re both pretty much sober; they’re in a room that is actually private, at least during the time that they’re in it. There’s a bed that doesn’t belong to someone’s mom who doesn’t know a party is happening in her house.

If his first blowjob from a guy was one of the best experiences of his life, having sex with Bill blows it out of the water. (Pun intended.)

And after, when he falls asleep in Bill’s bed — completely by accident, because he feels safer than he ever has — he realizes that’s a first, too.

* 

Richie isn’t sure he’d be able to handle it if things got unbearably awkward between him and Bill, and luckily, they don’t. The morning after, Bill’s alarm wakes them both, and Bill leans over to kiss him, quickly, before getting in the shower. He heads back to his own room to get ready for the day, and filming goes just as well as usual, or better.

That night, Bill provides the beer and they drink it in his room, getting a little tipsier than the previous night, and they don’t talk about what happened, but they don’t need to; it’s not awkward, or tense. It’s just comfortable.

They drink through a couple of six-packs, make out like teenagers on top of the sheets with the lights on, and fall asleep at a reasonable time.

Richie doesn’t think he’s ever been happier.

The rest of filming passes quickly; they have sex a couple more times, and all too soon, the director is calling cut on the final scene and they’re packing their bags for an early departure the next morning. Bill comes to Richie’s door at just past seven, and he doesn’t have a six-pack this time.

“Hey, big Bill,” Richie says, and Bill smiles and ducks his head. It’s adorable. It makes Richie want to ruffle his hair and kiss him a lot.

“Hey, Trashmouth. I… uh. Well. I’m leaving tonight.”

Richie blinks. “Oh.”

“Sorry. I have a book tour starting tomorrow, so I’m taking a redeye to Toronto. I’ll be back in LA in… well, about six months.”

“Right.”

“I just wanted to say goodbye, and give you my number. And I’ll take yours? I really want to stay in touch.”

There’s a part of Richie that’s unreasonably hurt and wants tell Bill to shove his number up his — well. The point is, that part of him is sulking away and is being quickly replaced by the logical part. It makes sense. And they’ll stay in touch. Maybe, just maybe, when they’re in the same city again, and not just working on a movie together…

“Yeah,” he says, and grabs a pad of paper and a pen off the hotel dresser. He scribbles his number, rips it off, and hands the paper to Bill. Bill hands back a piece of paper with his own number, obviously prepared before, and Richie tucks it in his pocket without looking.

For a moment, Bill just looks at him, and then he smiles. “See you around, Richie,” he says, and Richie finds himself smiling back.

“See you around, big Bill.”

When Bill is gone, he pulls the piece of paper out of his pocket. There’s the number, and almost like an afterthought, a heart.

He can’t stop smiling until he goes to bed.

*

The piece of paper falls off the nightstand where Richie left it and drifts under the bed as he sleeps. By the time it’s vacuumed up by the housekeepers, Richie is on a plane, and he isn’t thinking about anything but how tired he is and how much he wants to be in his own bed.

Bill holds onto Richie’s number until the Toronto airport, where it falls out of his pocket and joins the millions of scraps of other traveller’s lives. By the time they’re both at their destinations, they’ve forgotten each other. Completely.

*

A year later, Richie wears the most boring suit he can find to the premier. Katy is there, in a gorgeous red dress and with her hair done up beautifully with all kinds of flowers or pearls or something. He says that to her and she laughs, adjusts his lapels, and tells him to go get ‘em, tiger.

He walks the red carpet, lets the photos happen, and heads into the room where the important people hang out while they wait for the movie to start. He says hi to his costars, the director, and then he sees — Denbrough, talking to a red-haired woman. When Richie’s gaze lands on him, he looks away from the woman, and their eyes meet.

For a split second, Richie feels a million things in succession — a sting on his palm, butterflies in his stomach, a feeling of being known so deeply that words are irrelevant — and then it’s gone, and Denbrough is weaving through the room towards him. The woman is following.

“Richie Tozier!” he says, and shakes Richie’s hand. Richie smiles. “So good to see you. We met on set, right?”

Richie remembers, a little — Denbrough talking to the director, giving him a few character pointers, sitting next to him on the plane to the final shooting location. “Right, yeah. Denbrough, right? The reason we’re all here.”

“Bill is fine.” He seems to remember the woman beside him, and gestures towards her. “Right, sorry. Richie, this is Audra.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, “Bill’s talked about you quite a bit.” Richie laughs.

“You shouldn’t believe anything he tells you,” he says, and takes her hand to shake as well.

“All good things,” she says with a smile, and as she drops her hand, Richie gets a glance at her left hand, and the ring on it. She must see him looking, because she smiles, a little self-conscious, and reaches up to fidget with it. “We’re getting married, actually.”

Bill’s not wearing a ring, but Richie looks at his left hand anyways. Bill smiles, and wraps an arm around Audra. “I’m still not used to telling people. But yeah. My fiancée, Audra.”

There’s no reason for Richie to feel hurt, or let down, or betrayed, or any of the other million feelings that flood him. And he doesn’t feel them. They vanish as quickly as they arrived. When he smiles and says, “Hey, man, congrats,” he has no idea that he felt anything different.

“Thanks,” Bill says.

When Richie turns away, and the encounter fades from his mind, he doesn’t think of Bill Denbrough again for years.

*

“It’s Mike, from Derry.”

Richie listens to the rest of the phone call. Nods along, and says the appropriate things, and hangs up and immediately runs outside to throw up off the fire escape.

His first thought is, _ I’m going to die _ . His second thought is, _ Oh god, I had sex with Bill. _

**Author's Note:**

> And then after Bill’s divorce at the end of Chapter 2, they remember what happened and they get back together and have sex in Richie's mansion, the end.


End file.
